Antonio Governucci has his eyes firmly set on helping Ħamrun Spartans to be as competitive as possible as the Reds clinched their first league win of the season against Tarxien Rainbows last Friday.

Governucci replaced Gaetano Farrugio as the club’s sporting director this summer and his first main job was to ensure the Spartans remained one of the top teams in the division after they managed to finish in fourth place in the Premier League last season.

During this summer’s transfer window, Governucci, who has great experience when working in the Italian Serie C for many years, brought in some quality additions to bolster the squad, including defender Mattia Cinquini, midfielder Nicola Leone and forwards Dodo and Soufiane Lagzir.

“I’m pleased that we have finally got our first league victory,” Governucci said.

“We had to work hard for the three points but it was a team effort. Against Tarxien we played some excellent attacking football on which we work on the training pitch during the week so it’s great to reap the reward of our work.

“It was a difficult start to the season, as we faced Gżira United, whose main goal is to challenge for the title, and newly-promoted Gudja United who are turning out to be a tough nut to crack this season. But having picked five points from our opening five matches, we can be relatively satisfied and look forward to improve further in the coming weeks.”

The 2019-20 Premier League campaign is turning out to be rather hard to predict, with newly-promoted Sirens surprisingly at the top of the standings while usual title contenders Valletta, Hibernians, Birkirkara and Gżira United all placed in the bottom half of the standings.

“This season anything can happen,” Governucci said.

“I feel that here at Ħamrun Spartans I made a good transfer campaign bringing in some quality additions such as Lagzir, Dodo, Cinquini and Leone,” Governucci said.

“We have two international players in Triston Caruana and Karl Micallef who are key players for us while the arrival of Clayton Failla has added more experience to our squad. I hope to have Conor Borg back in the fray in the coming weeks as he can be a key player for us this season.

“Against Tarxien Rainbows, Wilfried Domoraud has shown that he is slowly getting into his best form and hopefully he can score more goals for us.”

One worrying aspect for the Spartans in the last two matches has been the defensive department as the team conceded some silly goals after some individual mistakes. Governucci said that the players are always working hard to improve and he is confident that the team will be more disciplined in the upcoming matches.

“Our coach opted for offensive tactics against Gudja and Tarxien Rainbows and that inevitably leaves you exposed a bit at the back,” Governucci said.

“But if you analyse the last two matches, three of the four goals conceded came from individual errors and we need to ensure that we are more focused on the pitch.

“I’m not too concerned about that as the players are always looking to improve from one match to the other and we will continue to get better.”

Next up for the Spartans is a match against leaders Sirens and Governucci is bracing for a tricky challenge.

“Sirens have been one of the most surprising sides at the start of the season, but I can assure our fans that we will be ready for that match,” Governucci said.

“We are not setting up any goals for this season as we are trying to go as far as possible in the championship. The most important thing is that we approach one match at a time and try and win as many games as possible and then see what happens.

“Sirens are no new opponents for us as we already faced them in pre-season. But we will play our game with a high tempo and try to get the result which we are all hoping for.”